


Felix Rides Easy

by Castillon02



Series: Bond Goes Forth [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Calf, Fluff, M/M, Tractors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 21:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15228402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: “This is all your fault,” Felix heard James say, and saw him cautiously peeking out from the pile of hay he was hiding in.





	Felix Rides Easy

**Author's Note:**

> For Felix Leiter Day during 007 Fest 2018!

It had been half an hour since they’d heard Franklin’s men drive off; long enough for an untrained backwoodsman (like most of the ones in Franklin’s gang) to give himself away if he’d been left behind. 

“This is all your fault,” Felix heard James say, and saw him cautiously peeking out from the pile of hay he was hiding in. 

“My fault?” Felix whispered, poking his head halfway out of the hay stack next to James to glare at him. “What did I say? Did I say, ‘James, you should seduce Franklin’s wife right in front of him, so he tries to have us killed’? Because I don’t recall saying that.” 

“You said I should, quote, ‘Piss Franklin off enough that he shits or gets off the pot,’” James reminded him. “It was either seduce his wife or crash his car, and his wife was closer. Now, if you’d had a getaway vehicle that wasn’t an American piece of–” 

Something rustled in a shadowy corner of the barn. Felix froze and James did the same next to him.  

The barn was a drafty wooden thing, old enough to have a hay loft up top like in the movies, with stalls and hay for a few cows on one end of the main level. The hulking iron skeletons of a few tractors dominated the other side of the barn. Franklin’s searchers had checked the stalls and the tractors, but luckily they hadn’t bothered to investigate the big feed piles of hay. 

Felix was pleased with his choice of hiding place. People always thought about looking in boxy, closeted places, but they rarely questioned those obvious features that seemed to be right in plain sight. 

Unfortunately, it seemed someone else had found a good hiding place, too. A homeless person? One of the farmer’s family members? 

Felix heard a huffing breath, a shuffle of limbs across the hay, and then a low but immensely reassuring, “ _Mrrrrrrroooooo._ ” A brown Jersey calf with ears like gravy spoons wandered out of the corner, peering at them with interest. 

Felix laughed. “Hello there, darling,” he said. “Come to join us on our midnight adventure?”     

Next to him, James eyed the calf with barely concealed wariness, and he stiffened as the calf galumphed a little closer to them. 

Felix grinned. James was such a city boy sometimes. “That’s right,” he cooed at the calf, enjoying James’ unease. “We’re just some harmless old spies, nothing to be worried about.” He clucked his tongue at it, wishing he had some sugar to give it. “They keep the calves separate from the mamas sometimes,” he explained. “Something about a stomping hazard.”   

Next to him, James fished a protein bar out of his suit jacket. “Think it can eat this?” he asked Felix. “Got to make allies where we can, after all.” He favored Felix with a lopsided smirk. 

Handsome bastard. “I’m not a cow expert just because I’m from Texas,” Felix said, and immediately ruined the pretense by adding, “They’ve got four stomachs and I’ve seen them eat whole bucketfuls of old peppers. There’s no guarantee it’ll like it, especially this young, but most things are safe to try.” 

James broke the protein bar into thirds, eating one third himself, offering one third to Felix, and holding his hand out to the calf with the last third. 

Felix chewed and hummed his approval. Peanut butter; his favorite. 

The calf toddled forward and sniffed at James’ hand for a few moments before its long tongue darted and licked the bit of protein bar up. It chewed, swallowed, and surged forward, nosing its way up James’s jacket until it was staring right in James’ face. 

“I think it liked–urk!” James recoiled as the calf’s tongue came out and darted across his face, leaving a trail of thick cow saliva from his chin to his cheek. 

For just a moment, the calf and James stared at each other, James’ eyes wide and his mouth dropped open in surprise. 

Felix had never wanted a camera so badly in his life. 

“Not tonight, sweetheart, I’ve got a headache,” James finally said, laughing a little as he pushed the cow’s face gently away. “Also, your tongue is a little too rough for my tastes.” He rubbed his hand over his face, wiping off the saliva. 

“Their tongues have to have good gripping strength because they’re missing some of their front teeth,” Felix said, flashing back to his grandmother telling him the same thing when he was young. His parents had been eager to escape to the city, and that was where he’d been raised, but she’d been country folk, and they’d visited her often. “Watch a cow eating grass–it’s their tongue that pulls it up to their mouth.” 

James quirked his eyebrows. “Aren’t you knowledgeable.” He steered the calf in Felix’s direction. 

“Oh, no–” 

“Oh, yes.” James grinned and prodded the calf a little. 

The calf made a grumbling sound and its long eyelashes fluttered in Felix’s direction. It stumbled over to him and would have rubbed its nose right into Felix’s beard if he hadn’t raised his arm up in time. As it was, the calf spent a good few minutes rubbing its cheek again the fabric of his suit jacket sleeve, back and forth, back and forth. 

He would definitely need dry cleaning to get all the cow drool off of it. Not to mention the nose wetness. 

It was, however, undeniably cute. 

Felix glanced up from the calf, caught an uncharacteristically soft expression on James’ face, and quickly glanced away again before he could make them both self-conscious. This was totally normal…sure…just two men and a baby cow, hiding from a money laundering gang in a barn in Alabama. 

A few minutes later, the calf had fallen back asleep, partly burrowed in the hay with its head resting against Felix’s thigh. “How do you think we should exfil?” Felix asked. They had a few different options, but those were also options that Franklin was likely to be tracking. One of the reasons Felix liked working with James was that he thought about things differently. 

And sure enough, James’ eyes flicked meaningfully to the iron skeletons on the opposite side of the barn, the ones with the huge tires and the weird steel arms that did  _something_  agricultural. 

“Oh, no–” Felix said again, but only halfheartedly. He was already resigned to his fate. He was going to ride a tractor to safety. 

“Oh, yes,” James said, and he grinned again in a way that made Felix’s heart pound a little faster. “I’ve got to get this one on my record, you know. I haven’t done a tractor yet.”

*** 

They had to bribe the farmers, of course, and as much as the image of a besuited Bond riding a tractor tickled Felix’s fancy, they also borrowed some oversized jeans, plaid shirts, and Crimson Tide caps. There was a polite fiction about wanting an authentic Alabama experience for their social media. The details were very important, they insisted. 

“It’s not hard, ’long as you remember you’re a few feet wider than the usual,” the farmer said, showing them the controls. “But I expect a pair of careful boys such as yourselves wouldn’t cause no accidents.” She slanted a look at them. “You park it right at the Walmart, now. And don’t deploy the sprayers on the road!” 

With that sage advice in their ears, they got into gear, rumbled out the gate, and split up at the first opportunity. 

Felix had never felt so tall or so invisible as he did while riding this placid iron steed. One of Franklin’s gang passed Felix on the road and didn’t even slow down, except in the obvious way that people briefly slowed down behind tractors before switching lanes and motoring quickly past.  

It wasn’t the most comfortable ride (how far was it to the Walmart, again?) but Felix grinned a secret grin anyway. If only Grammy Leiter could see him now. 

*** 

That evening, they met up at their rendezvous point, which was the county’s only fine restaurant. It still served country food, mind, but the mac and cheese was made with truffle oil, and it was the only place in thirty miles with seafood that wasn’t catfish or tuna casserole. 

If they could flip Franklin the bird by appearing in public and making it known that they weren’t afraid of him, so much the better. 

He and James both ordered a drink (bourbon for him, the usual vodka martini for James) and perused the menu. 

The special, advertised in big bold letters, was veal cutlets. Ordinarily one of Felix’s favorites. He flicked his eyes above the menu and met James’ curious gaze briefly.  

“I’ll have the lobster tail,” Felix told the server when she returned. 

“The same,” James said, his eyes crinkled at the edges. “You old softie,” he added, once the server had left. 

“I didn’t see you ordering it,” Felix said. 

“I could never betray Bessie,” James said, placing a dramatic hand over his heart. “Our love was entirely unique in my experience…and thankfully brief.” He smirked.   

“Funny, that’s exactly how I felt about my ride on the tractor today,” Felix said. 

“Looks like we’d both prefer something a little more familiar,” James suggested, his eyes warm on Felix’s. 

The candle at their table flickered. Felix abruptly became aware that half the other customers were married couples having a special evening out together. 

Well, he and James bickered like one. They shared meals and hotel rooms like one. Might as well enjoy the other benefits. 

“To familiar companions,” James toasted, raising his glass. 

“To old friends,” Felix said, clinking his bourbon against James’ martini. “And to new experiences.” He returned James’ warm look. 

Under the table, James’s foot pressed against his. Yeah, that was new all right. But this was James, and Felix had a good feeling that this latest adventure, like most of James’ ridiculous ideas, would shake out just fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 Constructive criticism is welcome.


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